Kabila ahead in DRC's election

KINSHASA, Thursday 

Early returns from Congo’s first multiparty vote in more than 40 years showed the former Belgian colony split down the middle between President Joseph Kabila in the highly-populated east and ex-rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, who led in the west and Kinshasa.

Oscar Kashala, a Massachusetts cancer specialist, stood in third place – handing him a powerful bargaining position if no candidate wins a majority and the election heads to a runoff on October 29.

"If it goes to a second round then Bemba and Kabila are going to need to build coalitions," said Mr Jason Stearns, senior analyst at International Crisis Group think-tank. "Kashala has performed strongly and that could make him influential."

Mr Kashala’s slick, US-style campaign traded on his "clean hands": he is a political outsider untainted by involvement in a bloody 1998-2003 war, which killed more than four million people. But the Westernised doctor received an unexpected boost when President Kabila briefly jailed his security guards on charges of coup plotting in May – handing Dr Kashala a flood of publicity, which he used to denounce government intimidation and harassment.

President Kabila, at 35 still one of the world’s youngest presidents, alienated Dr Kashala by harassing his campaign, diplomats say, and is unlikely to win the support of some of the other candidates.

Outside his Swahili heartlands in the east, there is tough opposition to another Kabila government in Lingala-speaking west and Kinshasa – where many opponents brand him a foreigner. In the capital, electoral slogans said: "Anyone but Kabila".

"We had thought Kabila would win in the first round, but if it goes to a second round, anything could happen," said Mr Stearns.

The stakes are high, as the country the size of Western Europe contains fabulous mineral wealth, including diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and coltan – plundered by neighbouring governments after the fall of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. (Reuters)